Tag: There is no perfect

Are You Up To Your Neck In Love?

Monday was my last day in Seattle.

The trip was a mixed bag, if I am honest. The kids and I had some great times, and I kept Gus worn out. : ) He had one nap and wanted another Saturday, but we were busy. This from a boy who has all but given up naps.

But as I said, it has been a mixed bag. I brought a deck of question cards which we used at meals and bedtime. It was hilarious and so much fun. BUT Sunday night, we had a zinger of a question – Tell me about an experience that helped you feel my love for you? Gus just laughed. Tessa said, “Well, you have let me snuggle with you.” She has slept with me every night. She wakes up in the wee hours and crawls in. You all know how kids spread out!

That has been part of the reason for Elliot’s answer –“Well, I haven’t gotten yelled at too much.” What? I don’t yell, but I have a stern voice that comes out when I am tired, frustrated, or at a loss about what else to do. My hormone replacement pills went missing for three days, which didn’t help, but he was right; I had some grouchy moments with everyone.

I went to bed that last night a little teary-eyed and thought about it. I mean, grandma’s want to be perfect, and frankly, I am not. There are moms who trust me and what I share here. I couldn’t let them think that I am super happy all the time, not ridged occasionally, always patient and upbeat, or that I don’t ‘yell.’ It wouldn’t be fair.

In fact, just yesterday, one of my clients said, “I saw some of your posts from Seattle. It looks like you had a wonderful time, and so did the kids. You are amazing.” And many Facebook comments were saying the same as if we had a perfect time and I was always smiling and fun and, well, perfect.

Those comments and what my client said stung a bit. Here is the truth – I am amazing, BUT I am also ordinary. I am just an everyday woman doing her best, and my best isn’t always enough. My best fluctuates.

Wouldn’t it be great to be perfect, to play all the time and like it, never to get tired and crabby, always to be cheerful and fun, never to use your ‘stern/yell’ voice. It would eliminate the worried nights when you know you haven’t been the way you want to be. But here we are, just ordinary people working to do the ‘extraordinary’ thing, caring well for others.

This doesn’t just happen to me when I wrangle three little kids at seventy-two years old. It happens at home, wrangling my mom and my husband and all the rest that goes with living in a four-generation household. I have been working on changing my way of being to be more charitable. That last night in Seattle, I felt as if I had made NO progress at all in decades. I mean, I still get grumpy, am impatient, and am not always long-suffering, kind, humble, well behaved, concerned with others rather than myself, grateful, not provoked, etc. I can list them off because I have them written on the first page of my scriptures. I look at the list regularly because, after all, it is my goal.

There is a space between stimulus and response. The thing that has changed for me over the years is that that space has gotten wider. I rarely go off now and wonder what happened. I know I am choosing. I see that space, and I feel myself making a choice. Sometimes that is harder and is a mixed blessing for sure, to know you chose to be uncharitable with those you love. Thank goodness God, and Christ love me despite my weakness.

Monday, my last day as caretaker for the kids, was good. I got them off to school with minimal chaos and lots of smiles and hugs. I managed Gus well, who was tired and a little grumpy. After school, we used our question cards, our goal was to ask them all, and we made it. : ) We had a great supper and laughed and talked. Then mom and dad came home, and happiness exploded all over everyone.

That last night in Seattle, as I lay in bed pondering the good and not so good times we had, I wondered how the grands would feel the next time I came to visit? It was a question mark in my mind. However, little kids are forgiving. They love unconditionally. A couple of weeks ago, I posted on Facebook about my grandma and the tough times we had because I was a bed-wetter. But I still loved her. I always wanted to go to her house.

I feel that is the case here because of what Tessa did on Sunday. We were in the kitchen, and I was fixing some food. She said, “Grandma, let me see how tall I am to you.” So we stood chest to chest, and she measured from her head to my body. It was right at my neck. Tessa laughed and said, “I am as high as your neck, grandma. You are up to your neck in love!”

I would rather not have written this article, but I cannot let my friends and fellow parents think I am perfect because I’m not. And neither are they. It isn’t fair to simply post pictures of smiling kids doing crafts, rollerblading, and all the rest. We have to support each other in our weaknesses and our strengths. So thanks for being here, reading what I write, believing my words, and allowing me to be honest. : ) I still work on my goal of a tender and softened heart, to feel charity every day. I suspect that I will get better and better. In fact, when I shared this experience with my daughter Jodie, she assured me that I was SO much different than when I was a young mom. Glad to know I am making progress even when it feels like I’m not.

So hang in there, keep working on yourself. Be consistent. It is a lifetime job. Don’t let discouragement get in your way.

Getting up when you fall, being consistent in your efforts pays off. Really!!

Do You Want to be Perfect?

Strive for improvement, not obsessive perfectionism.

“No matter how consistent I am at something I just haven’t been able to be perfect!” The mom making this comment was feeling really stressed out and like a failure. Can you relate? As a mentor, I hear it all the time!

Where in the world did we ever get the idea that there would ever be a time in our lives when we would have everything all worked out.

Unfortunately, this is how I lived a great many years of my life. I felt that in order to be of value in the world I needed to be perfect. I tried, I really tried. As a child, I REALLY tried. But I couldn’t do it and so I grew up knowing that somehow there was just something not quite right about me. And then things got ugly because as an adult I wasn’t any better at perfect than I had been as a child. In fact, I was less perfect because now I was the mother of a family and I had to lead out, so I made a lot more mistakes.

Now for the important part.

Because I was so busy trying to be perfect it became VERY hard to really enjoy life, my kids, my husband, anything. That’s because life is messy, kids are messy, and relationships are messy. Trust me, our parenting was messy. And because it wasn’t perfect and I wasn’t perfect at it, I had a hard time enjoying it.

When I began teaching about family connections and having more fun as a family it was challenging for me because I had parented imperfectly. I worried that I didn’t have anything to offer or that even if I did no one would listen to me. That was a tough place to teach from.

After a few years I contemplated quitting because, in order to teach the very things that I really knew a lot about, I had to confess to the world that I wasn’t perfect. This was truly daunting for a person who had spent a huge portion of her life working for perfection.

Before I began teaching families how to connect, back in my Montana days,  I had a façade going that was amazing. People in my world thought I was perfect. In fact, I was slightly intimidating because I looked so perfect. But then our lives began to fall apart and it became evident to everyone that I wasn’t perfect and this made how I felt about myself worse.

Recently I read an article by Glennon Doyle Melton and was struck by what she said about this issue of perfection.

“So often, people’s lives are presented to us as before and after stories. It’s always: “Look! My mess is fine because I’m ALL BETTER NOW! Ten steps to FREEDOM! Look at me, I’m FREE!” Sometimes it feels like it’s only okay to talk about your Cinderella story when you’re at the ball. When the tough, ugly parts are over. When everything is shiny and happily ever after, promise!! …But there is no ball. There is no point in which you stop working and just brush your long pretty hair and flit around, untouchable. Done. All better. There is no before and after. Most honest folks…will tell you that it’s just the same %^$# thing, over and over. That you just fall down seven times and get back up eight…I’m not at the ball. I’m scrubbing floors: wondering why everyone else gets to dance and make it look so easy. I’m a little angry and confused that I’m almost forty years old and STILL DEALING WITH THIS %*&^#. Why I don’t have all of this figured out yet.  Glennon Doyle Melton

She was speaking specifically about body issues, weight, overeating, etc. but it’s all the same. It could be yelling, poor spending habits, not connecting with your kids or a thousand other issues. When you don’t have things worked out you feel bad. You feel that somehow you’re a failure, that if you were worth anything you would have it all worked out by now!

I have a couple of friends who are in their late 80’s, they’re twins. They have lived together for the last few years and they walk almost every day, arm in arm.

One day Marion was walking alone, and she was a bit tippy on her feet. I saw her and was worried so I went out and said, “Marion, can I walk with you.” As we walked, she talked about her life and her sister. They had been fighting and she was sad. Their relationship had been a mess for a few days. She began to cry.

I was flabbergasted!! I couldn’t help myself, and despite her tears, I blurted out, “Marion, I thought when I got to your age I would have it all worked out!”

Through her tears she began laughing – “Oh goodness honey, that will never happen. There is always something to work on!”

And there it is. We aren’t ever going to be perfect. We will get good at some things. There may even be one or two things that we do fairly perfectly but, we are never going to be perfect. We are never going to have everything worked out. There is always going to be something you don’t know, haven’t mastered yet or that is messy.

So, what can you do about it?

Do what I’m doing.

  • Keep working on yourself, your attitude, your relationships, your systems, etc. 
  • Know that your value isn’t in perfection but in the fact that you are here, trying.
  • Know that your efforts to be better will matter and that even if you aren’t perfect you have something to share with your spouse, your children, your neighborhood, maybe the world.

Keep working on things. There really isn’t a before and after in life, a place you get to where you have it all worked out and life is happily ever after. Remember what Marion said, “Oh goodness honey, that will never happen, there is always something to work out!” And at 80+ she ought to know!

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